Endocrine Abstracts

Aims/hypothesis: Oxytocin (OT) and OT receptor (OTR) are expressed in the heart. During OT synthesis, its precursor, termed OT-Gly-Lys-Arg (OT-GKR), is abundantly accumulated in the developing rat heart. Because the OTR is primarily associated with Gq/11protein subunit that activates protein synthesis, we hypothesised that OT can cause cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. On the other hand, OTR signalling is associated with anti-hypertrophic atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) release and ...

The oxytocin (OT) treatment protects heart against ischemia. Here we investigated heart-derived H9c2 cells in simulated ischemia-reperfusion (I-R) experiments in order to examine the mechanism of OT-induced cardioprotection.Results: I-R was induced in an anoxic chamber for 2 h and followed by 2 h of reperfusion. In comparison to normoxia, I-R resulted in decrease of formazan production by H9c2 cells to 63.5±1.7% (MTT assay) and enhanced apoptosis fr...

During maturation of oxytocin (OT) prohormone, several bioactive intermediate molecules are formed. The plasma concentrations of these forms (OT-G; OT-GK and OT-GKR) increase markedly in rat circulation at the end of gestation. At low concentration in the circulation OT stimulates while OT-GKR inhibits diuresis. Since OT and OT-GKR show different effects on the urine flow, we hypothesized that OT-GKR modulates renal action by targeting the V2 receptor.<p class="...

Oxytocin (OT) is involved in the regulation of energy metabolism and in the activation of cardio-protective mechanisms. We evaluated whether chronic treatment with OT could prevent the metabolic and cardiac abnormalities associated with diabetes and obesity using the db/db mice model. Four-week-old male db/db mice and their lean non-diabetic littermates (db/+) serving as controls were treated with OT (125 ng/kg per h) or saline vehicle for a period of 12 weeks. Compared to db/...